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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27267175">slow rise</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/ewatsonia/pseuds/ewatsonia'>ewatsonia</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Sanders Sides (Web Series)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Dark Creativity | Remus "The Duke" Sanders Being Dark Creativity | Remus "The Duke" Sanders, Depression, Descriptions of dying and a corpse but no actual death, Gen, Suicidal Ideation</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-07 02:22:08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,159</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27267175</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/ewatsonia/pseuds/ewatsonia</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Thomas is having a hard time willing himself out of bed. The sides try to help. Well, some of them.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>28</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>slow rise</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Thomas doesn't want to get up.</p><p>It's not that he wants to sleep in longer, because he's actually been awake for a few hours. No he physically does not want to get up. </p><p>There's a warm, heavy feeling over him that has nothing to do with his blankets keeping him in bed. It's not a cozy comfortable sort of warm, it's... muggy, uncomfortable, sticking him there. In the back of his head there's something urging him, telling him he needs to get out of bed and start his day, start his <em> work, </em>but... he really doesn't want to. He's kind of not really seeing a point to it, actually.</p><p>"Thomas, I know you realize what time it is."</p><p>There's the something. Thomas moves his head from staring blankly at his phone to the edge of his bed. Logan, sitting there with his arms crossed. He doesn't quite meet his gaze, shifting himself to full attention would be too much effort.</p><p>He does know. it's half past one in the afternoon.</p><p>Instead of answering, Thomas lets the heavy warmth force his eyelids closed. Sometime between then and when he lifts them again, Logan leaves and is replaced by someone more insistent.</p><p>"If you don't get up and do your work, you're gonna let everyone down. They'll hate you." </p><p>"Mm." Thomas responds. The warmth coats him, dulls and stifles everything around him, what Virgil tells him should be biting, should get him scurrying to salvage the day. It doesn't. Thomas flicks his phone on and oh, it's nearly four now. How about that? </p><p>“Dude <em> what the fuck. </em> ” Thomas feels someone shaking him. “<em>Get up.”  </em></p><p>Thomas just lets it happen, he could tell Virgil to stop but even opening his mouth and saying a few words feels like too much work. There’s a tightness in his chest, setting him on edge and he knows Virgil’s right, if he leaves his work to rot he’ll upset a lot of people who are depending on him but it’s not convincing enough to get him to try to fight through the haze he’s in.</p><p>Somewhere along the lines Virgil either gives up or Thomas just manages to tune him out because he can’t feel the urging as strongly anymore. </p><p>“Kiddo…” </p><p>There’s a hand running over his cheek. It’s cooler than he is, just barely enough to grab his attention, and he sees Patton, standing over him. His face is scrunched into a concerned frown and there are deep, deep dark circles under his eyes, the glasses framing them magnifying and centering attention to them,</p><p>He has some difficulty, because of how greasy and unkempt it is, but Patton uses his hand to comb the hair from Thomas’s face. “It’s not super healthy to stay in bed this long bud. It’s a nice day out, don’t you wanna enjoy it?”</p><p>Thomas doesn’t think he could enjoy it if he tried, everything is stifled into warm numbness and he thinks that since emotions are part of his <em> thing </em> Patton should know that. </p><p>Patton gives him a tired smile. “I know it’s hard right now kiddo, trust me I <em> do</em>, probably the best out of all of us. I’m not asking you to bounce right out of bed and attack the day but...maybe sit up, just a bit?”</p><p>If it were possible, Thomas sinks lower into the bed, presses his head into the pillow, only able to see Patton out of the corner of his eyes, putting his head down.</p><p>“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”</p><p>It’s quiet for a bit. </p><p>“Ah, you know, laying in bed all day was <em> absolutely </em> what I had in mind when I said you needed to take time for yourself.”</p><p>Thomas closes his eyes, grunts in faint annoyance that manages to weasel its way through the fog on all of his emotions. “Self care.” he mutters, pulling the covers over his face and letting the stifling, sickening, yet somehow enticing warmth reel him back in, now that he’s made a minimal effort to justify it.</p><p>“Self care? Thomas, <em> this- </em> ” Janus sounds incredulous and Thomas can’t see what he’s doing, doesn’t care to, really but he’s probably doing some big gesture with his arms to point out his near vegetative state because he's dramatic like that. “<em>This </em> is not self care! What you’re doing is-”</p><p>Thomas lets the rant Janus is going off on fade into the background because he doesn’t want to argue with himself. Doesn’t want to deal with berating himself. He does that too much. He wants to go back to sleep, actually. That sounds nice. His brain is practically half off already, too overheated, numb to do anything properly. Why not shut it off completely?</p><p>There’s a weight next to him on the bed, someone lying there, almost on top of him, squishing him to the edge of the bed, it’s an uncomfortable position but warm. Very, very warm. </p><p>“Be nice if we could do it forever, huh?” </p><p>It’s the first suggestion today that Thomas actually likes the sound of. Funny that. He probably shouldn’t, something something listening to intrusive thoughts bad. But listening to Remus actually takes less effort than ignoring the others did. So he'll just let him have his fun, he supposes.</p><p>“I mean, we can!” Remus says, it’s not a shout, almost casual conversation. He’s a lot lower energy today. It’s actually pretty tolerable. “It won’t be <em> fast </em> but if we just lay here long enough we’ll die of dehydration.”</p><p>Laying down, not getting up, that sounds nice.</p><p>“Yeah and see, after a while you wouldn’t even need to piss anymore! Your body wants to hold onto as much water as it can, kind of just slowing down the inevitable and dragging out your death, so you don’t pee and you don’t <em> sweat </em> so you get all warm and your blood gets thick and goopy…”</p><p>Sounds like how he feels now, really…</p><p>“...but basically you wouldn’t even have <em> that </em> trying to get you out of bed anymore so you could stay here forever!” </p><p>Bed. Forever. That sounds nice too. </p><p>Something hisses at Remus. Thomas doesn’t have a cat(if he did, it’d eventually find his corpse, shriveled and dried, and it would be hungry because he didn’t feed it while he was wasting away in bed, so it’d probably just start eating it.) so it’s probably Virgil.</p><p>“Fuck! Off!” there’s a thump and the warm presence next to him in bed is suddenly gone, so he’s pretty sure that means Virgil yanked Remus off of him. He blinks, jarred, a little more aware than he had been.  Oh…jeez.</p><p>From the floor, Remus cackles. “I was just telling him what he wanted to hear!” </p><p>The scowl on Virgil’s face is practically audible as Thomas is told for what feels like the thousandth time today, “Thomas, you need to get up.” </p><p>“Yeah...” he says</p><p>And he’s not really sure which one of them he’s agreeing with.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Being completely honest, I've been having some days like this lately and I thought exploring the thought process through Thomas and the sides would be interesting. Also there's not enough character Thomas angst.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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